


The Dark Past

by TheArcReactor (Ashkka)



Category: DC Cinematic Universe, DCU, Justice League - All Media Types, Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War I, Emotions, Fear, Hate, Love, Memories, Story, Themyscira, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-08 17:44:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11086698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashkka/pseuds/TheArcReactor
Summary: Diana tells Bruce Wayne about her life before they'd met. About her experience from the war.(takes place after the Wonder Woman movie, but in a Justice League-type setting)





	The Dark Past

**Author's Note:**

> Got out of the theater just a matter of hours ago. I LOVED this movie and I hope that you like this small scene that I thought up!
> 
> If you guys have not seen the movie yet, I HIGHLY encourage that you do so before reading this work.
> 
>  
> 
> \- Just some simple dialogue, I hope you enjoy it!-

Diana sat across from Bruce, gently rubbing her thumb across the face of the photograph. Bruce had sent her the original photo some days ago with a note attached.  

_Maybe you can tell me about it sometime..._

 

She had taken him up on the offer. 

 

* * *

 

They were sitting in the Wayne Manor living room. Night had fallen and a fire burned in the hearth. It was comfortable, possibly one of the most comfortable places since Themyscira. The sparks of the fire sent shadows dancing across the walls, making the whole room seem alive.  

"I don't even know where to start," Diana mused. She looked into Bruce's dark eyes and, for a moment, Steve's face looked back. 

"How about when you first came to our world?" Offered Bruce, leaning forwards. 

 

"Well, a man named Steve Trevor crash-landed in Themyscira. He taught me many things about this world. He showed me that the world of man wasn't such a horrible place. This was in the time of what you now call World War One."

The light flickered off of Bruce's face and Diana found that she was drawn to it. It reminded her so much of the battlefield. She turned to face the fire, watching it consume the wood there with a ravenous hunger. 

 _Ares.._. 

 

She squeezed her eyes shut. Time could mend, rebuild, and show many things... but there was no one, nobody in the new world that was quite like the man that she had once known. It was something that would never truly heal. She remembered the way that he'd first come to Themyscira, the way that her beloved people had died on that day. That and the chaos that came after...

"It... was a dark day for us Amazons," she continued, "many of us had never seen a man before, but only heard of them by legend. Then,right there -at our doorstep- , was a whole army of German soldiers. We fought, we died, but we won. I decided to return to man's world with Steve, against my mother's wishes. We had not known it, but their war was caused by the god Aries. My mission was to kill him, so that peace could come to your world."

The glass casing around the photo gleamed in the firelight. Steve's face was shadowed, blocked from the light by her hand. She moved her hand so that she could see his face again. It was a grainy photo, very different compared to the high-quality stuff that technology produced nowadays. Still, she could see his handsome face reflecting back at her. He was smiling.

_She missed that smile with all her heart._

"Where was that taken?" Asked Bruce after a second, "I know there are note telling where it was, but there has to be some things that weren't mentioned in the storybooks."

Diana smiled at the memory. It had been a calm before the storm. A good time that was full of joy and merriment. They had danced, sung, and even shared a short kiss.

"That was after we took the trenches. The villagers had been all enslaved and under German control. We freed them and they gave us everlasting gratitude," her smile wavered as she remembered their fate, all the horrors that would follow. 

"That village was destroyed soon after, wasn't it," said Bruce. It wasn't a question, more of a statement. 

Diana nodded. 

"It was the first test of the experimental bioweapon..."

She remembered the orange fog, the terrible gas, that had flooded the land around it. It had been a living hell. Even so many years later, Diana could feel the overwhelming guilt that she had felt, mixed with the confusion that had plagued her mind at the time. She had blamed Steve for that. 

 _"This is your fault! You stopped me!"_ Those words had come from her mouth, hurled in rage, at the one person she had loved so dearly. It had come back to haunt her so often.

Bruce looked at her with sympathy. He must have seen it in her face. _What else could he do?_ He had not been there, he had not seen the horrors...

"After that, I went after Aries... well... _we_ did. We tracked him to a nearby military base. The funny thing was that I had thought that Aries was General Ludendorff, the opposing general. The others weren't sure what to believe. Some agreed with me and accepted reality, but people like Steve... They didn't think that there _was_ an Aries. He believed in the darkness of humanity, that it was human nature causing the conflict. It turned out to be a completely different than what we all thought. It was a man from our side of the war, _imagine that_. Of course, I didn't find out until after I'd killed the General." 

"You sound as though you regret it?" Said Bruce, searching her face.

"No, it's not so much that, but rather that I believed that I'd _killed_ Aries the first time. There was a break in the action where Steve tried to get me to help... but I was lost, Bruce, lost... I wasn't sure what to do. I had accomplished my mission, but nothing had changed. I had expected _something_. I was disappointed and confused. Like all the energy was sucked out of me...That is a feeling that I will never let myself feel again."

  
Bruce nodded, his eyes falling to the fire. His expression was hard to read, but something told Diana that he knew what it felt like. 

"Soon after Steve left, Aries appeared. He tried to sway me to join him, to help him destroy the world of men... The scary part is that I almost did, Bruce, I almost did..."

"What stopped you?" Asked Bruce, leaning forwards again.

"Steve," said Diana, her voice thick. She smiled as she remembered his last words to her. 

"He showed me what it is like to be human." 

Bruce looked at the picture in her hands and nodded. 

"He sounds like a good man," he murmured.

Diana smiled, "he was. He really was. He was honest with me, he listened to all of my words... even when I had no idea what I was talking about... he said that we are all imperfect. But he taught me to embrace it. Mankind is cruel, dangerous, angry, and so many other things. That it is those qualities that makes it beautiful."

The fire burned brightly, throwing sparks into the air. All at once, one of the logs gave way, letting loose a shower of golden ash into the air surrounding it. 

"Even when there was no hope, when Aries had me in a corner, called me to join him, Steve was in my mind; telling me to look at mankind from a different perspective. I chose a path, right there and then. A path that I now see, that I have strayed from."

"No you haven't, the Justice League, the world. They know you as a hero," Bruce insisted.

She looked him hard in the eye, "all those years of hiding, they're done now. I may be back now, but for many years, I ran from the world."

A deep silence followed this. Diana let it all sink in, all the memories. She leaned back and stared at the painted ceiling. It was as though her regrets were slowly floating up off of her chest and into the night. Somehow, talking to Bruce was refreshing, as though she were being reborn. 

 

The silence was broken by a soft alarm blaring from her pocket, signaling an emergency. 

 

Bruce checked his phone as well, for the same alarm had gone off on his device as well. He got to his feet and looked down at her, a smile playing at his mouth.

 

"Ready to be a hero again?" 

 

 

She looked back at the fire, her phone sitting in her lap. Alarm silenced, it merely sat there in her curled fingers. She remembered the war and all of its many horrors. 

_I tried to save the world, this beautiful place..._

All those years ago, she had saved. Then she had lost it again to war and suffering.

Maybe it was not too late to save it again. She had said that the age of heroes was over, so many times. _But was that true?_ Batman was the real thing, a hero that embodied the meaning of humanity. As was the rest of the League. It would be different this time. 

_They do not deserve you._

A memory sparked in her mind, from when she had argued with Steve back on the military base. 

_"My mother was right, they don't deserve me."_

_"That doesn't matter! You can still make a difference!"_

Diana looked back up at Bruce, the fire still flickering in his face, casting shadows over his eyes. 

She smiled up at him. 

"Yes."

 

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies, some of the quotes are off (and I know it), please tell me if you find anything that's serious! After all, I've only seen the film once...
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
